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LA Noire takes the top spot again, bringing its total sales over a million, closer to what I was expecting. DNF is the big surprise, at #2 – until you notice it didn't even manage half a million sales.

On the hardware side, the XBOX 360 is officially a juggernaut, putting up holiday sales numbers in a non-holiday month, and decimating the competition. The Wii price drop had... well, no effect as far as I can tell. It was neck-and-neck with the PS3 (which also had a promo of its own). It's kinda scary.

The discovery this week that "microsoft-sony.com" is a domain owned by Microsoft set off all sorts of speculation as to what a potential collaboration could mean. Microsoft's Frank X. Shaw, the company's top spokesman, tweeted on Friday that "Sony = great MS partner. No scoop here, this was just a defensive domain hold."

Though the downtime cost Sony an estimated $171 million, Schaaff added, "It's been a great experience," and later clarifying, "I would not like to do it again. One time was enough. Great learning experience."

Ubisoft has confirmed Uplay Passport, its version of "online pass" or "Project Ten Dollar." The Uplay Passport, which will be implemented for the first time in Driver: San Francisco, is the standard multiplayer pass that will restrict online play to those who have redeemed a code in new copies of the game or purchased a code from the Xbox Marketplace or PSN. A new Uplay Passport, for those who pick up the game used, will cost $9.99.

Ubisoft announces it has no grasp on how much people care about both Driver and it's multiplayer. What the hell, man?

Epic Games' European head, Mike Gamble, says there's a simple reason we're seeing so many big game companies close triple-A studios lately: stupidity. "It's happened because of stupid acquisitions," he said in London recently. Quite a few studios have seen shutdowns, either after or even during big game releases, and Gamble even specifically calls out Disney for buying and then closing down Split/Second developer Black Rock Studio. "What was the point of a well-known children's IP holder buying a hardcore racing studio?," asked Gamble. "It doesn't make sense."

“Some weeks I was work ing 100 to 120 hours a week”, says Glenn Watson, former Head Studio Programmer at Gameloft’s New Zealand arm. “Starting at 9:30 AM, going home at 2:30 AM, and then com ing back into the office at 8:30 AM to start work again was not unusual”. Glenn, who began his long career in Australia’s game development industry with Ratbag Games in Adelaide, spoke to games.on.net about what he describes as “dangerous working conditions” at a company that, it seems, has no qualms about breaking New Zealand’s health and safety laws. “There were other times when I would be called back into the office at 11:30 PM by the studio producer, only to head home again at 2:30 AM,” he explained. “It was after I worked four consecutive weeks of fourteen-hour days - including weekends - that I realised I needed to resign”.

“It was 11:30 at night,” says Glenn, “everyone had been there since 8:30 in the morning, and even our most reli able pro gram mers were mak ing mis takes. I went up to see the stu dio man ager and the pro du cer and said ‘Listen, these guys are mak ing mis takes, they are tired, and they need to go home’. The producer replied that they needed everyone to be there, and the deadline had to be met. Later, I found out that one of the junior pro gram mers had actually worked a 24-hour straight stint in the office.”

I'm going to be really surprised if something colossal doesn't happen in the game industry soon.

"The only place where Party Chat should be blocked is Search & Destroy," says Bowling, since that's the only mode where players are meant to have only one life per attack, and allowing dead players to chat with live ones might create an unfair advantage. For all of the other modes, "it's about giving options. We will have places where competitive guys go where you might have restrictive voice chat. And then you have an option to maybe play that same mode without the same restrictions if that's the type of player you are."

Yeah, thanks for realizing that two years late. What happened to promoting team communication, Robert "Cue Ball" Bowling?

“Some weeks I was work ing 100 to 120 hours a week”, says Glenn Watson, former Head Studio Programmer at Gameloft’s New Zealand arm. “Starting at 9:30 AM, going home at 2:30 AM, and then com ing back into the office at 8:30 AM to start work again was not unusual”. Glenn, who began his long career in Australia’s game development industry with Ratbag Games in Adelaide, spoke to games.on.net about what he describes as “dangerous working conditions” at a company that, it seems, has no qualms about breaking New Zealand’s health and safety laws. “There were other times when I would be called back into the office at 11:30 PM by the studio producer, only to head home again at 2:30 AM,” he explained. “It was after I worked four consecutive weeks of fourteen-hour days - including weekends - that I realised I needed to resign”.
“It was 11:30 at night,” says Glenn, “everyone had been there since 8:30 in the morning, and even our most reli able pro gram mers were mak ing mis takes. I went up to see the stu dio man ager and the pro du cer and said ‘Listen, these guys are mak ing mis takes, they are tired, and they need to go home’. The producer replied that they needed everyone to be there, and the deadline had to be met. Later, I found out that one of the junior pro gram mers had actually worked a 24-hour straight stint in the office.”

That's ridiculous. I'm sure you actually get less done in those situations. I can understand a couple of nights that way out of a month. But to work that way for months? That's stupid.

I'm ignorant to the world of gaming, but just superficially it seems like games like Duke Nukem Forever are just rehashes of the same basic premise of shooting the liquor stash. So I can out of stuff. This is just my overall impression though...

I would also argue that you don't need the resolution of a more modern gaming system to be "modern" or "innovative". Good graphics are good graphics regardless of resolution up to a certain point, but I don't think you necessarily need realism to offer graphically rich worlds. You can do so with impressionism and/or just great art direction. I wonder if sometimes the graphical restraints help spur creativity out of necessity, and whether in other cases whether the presence of such high-res/HD graphical capabilities stifles innovation?

Has there been a major innovation beyond the WoW online thing or the Wii/Kinect/etc. input device stuff? What has it been? Just curious, I'm not immersed deeply enough in gaming to really clutch to my impressions

I'm not sure I trust the word "truly" being in there. I can say that my gaming experience this generation rarely bears any resemblance to my gaming experience last gen.

Originally Posted by besson3c

I'm ignorant to the world of gaming, but just superficially it seems like games like Duke Nukem Forever are just rehashes of the same basic premise of shooting the liquor stash. So I can out of stuff. This is just my overall impression though...

Using Duke Nukem, a game that started development in 1996 is the worst possible example you could have chosen. Would you like to refer to a game that started development after 2007, perhaps?

Originally Posted by besson3c

I would also argue that you don't need the resolution of a more modern gaming system to be "modern" or "innovative".

You don't need modern technology to be modern? I'll disagree. The Wii looks like ass on an HDTV. Is it coincidence the Dolphin emulator touts up-resing textures as a feature?

As far as innovation, I'm not sure who claims that it offers innovation, but it is easier on the eyes, and helps immersion.

Originally Posted by besson3c

Good graphics are good graphics regardless of resolution up to a certain point, but I don't think you necessarily need realism to offer graphically rich worlds. You can do so with impressionism and/or just great art direction.

Such as this?

Originally Posted by besson3c

I wonder if sometimes the graphical restraints help spur creativity out of necessity, and whether in other cases whether the presence of such high-res/HD graphical capabilities stifles innovation?

If that were the case, than the Wii would be hands-down bursting with graphical creativity. That is not the case.

Originally Posted by besson3c

Has there been a major innovation beyond the WoW online thing or the Wii/Kinect/etc. input device stuff? What has it been? Just curious, I'm not immersed deeply enough in gaming to really clutch to my impressions

What do you consider an innovation? You seem to be referring to physical input and MMOs here (and WoW didn't innovate there, it merely crushed its predecessors in terms of success).

Besson3c, did you respond in the correct thread? Maybe perhaps you wanted to respond in the Top 5 Modern Games thread?

As well, bringing up this year's worst game Duke Nukem Forever, and using it to discuss modern innovative games is probably not a good idea, as it's neither. As critics have already complained, it's neither modern nor innovative.

I'm not sure I trust the word "truly" being in there. I can say that my gaming experience this generation rarely bears any resemblance to my gaming experience last gen.

Agreed.

Using Duke Nukem, a game that started development in 1996 is the worst possible example you could have chosen. Would you like to refer to a game that started development after 2007, perhaps?

Am I incorrect in thinking that a great many post 2007 games are all about shooting stuff?

You don't need modern technology to be modern? I'll disagree. The Wii looks like ass on an HDTV. Is it coincidence the Dolphin emulator touts up-resing textures as a feature?

It depends on how you define modern, I guess. Yes, the Wii looks like ass on an HDTV technically speaking, but I think some of its games such as the Zeldas and Mario Galaxies hold up well simply because of their great art direction. Yes, they still suffer the same technical problems, but they stimulate the imagination because of their vividness and impressionistic qualities. They have achieved graphical greatness in spite of their technical limitations, and without being photo realistic. It is cool how Ocarina of Time 3DS looks so rich simply by upping the technology while leaving the basic art intact. This is telling, this game was and still is graphically rich at least as far as its artistic content goes.

What do you consider an innovation? You seem to be referring to physical input and MMOs here (and WoW didn't innovate there, it merely crushed its predecessors in terms of success).

I consider substantial new concepts that aren't just a rehash of old concepts to be innovative. The shooters just bore me. I mean, I remember being into them with the first Marathon game for the Mac, the new games just seem like an evolution of this same basic game.

Since you're the gamer, if you don't mind me asking you, what sort of games do you consider innovative and why?

Am I incorrect in thinking that a great many post 2007 games are all about shooting stuff?

You're indicting the genre rather than the games themselves. it's simply intellectually lazy. You can't group BioShock, Modern Warfare, Borderlands, and Portal into the same group unless you're being superficial.

Video games, as a medium, have some serious handicaps. One of them is, in the vast majority of games you're going to kill stuff. Mario, Zelda, Gradius, Wolfenstein, Final Fantasy... you're killing stuff. The exceptions used to be sports games (Except you, my dear Mutant League Football), and in the past generation and half, music games.

Now, add the desire to immerse someone in a game and what camera view do you take?

So again, complaining about shooters being commonplace is an incredibly short-sighted complaint.

Originally Posted by besson3c

It depends on how you define modern, I guess. Yes, the Wii looks like ass on an HDTV technically speaking, but I think some of its games such as the Zeldas and Mario Galaxies hold up well simply because of their great art direction.

I don't see how they're not just simple graphical refinements just like any other game.

Originally Posted by besson3c

Yes, they still suffer the same technical problems, but they stimulate the imagination because of their vividness and impressionistic qualities. They have achieved graphical greatness in spite of their technical limitations, and without being photo realistic.

It is cool how Ocarina of Time 3DS looks so rich simply by upping the technology while leaving the basic art intact. This is telling, this game was and still is graphically rich at least as far as its artistic content goes.

I don't think it looks "so rich." I was relatively unimpressed with the screenshots. It got the standard upresing and some enhanced shadows. That was to be expected.

Originally Posted by besson3c

I consider substantial new concepts that aren't just a rehash of old concepts to be innovative.

The ultimate irony is that Nintendo makes it's living providing just that. Are the Zeldas and Marios really all that dramatically different than those from the N64 days? I would vote no.

Originally Posted by besson3c

The shooters just bore me. I mean, I remember being into them with the first Marathon game for the Mac, the new games just seem like an evolution of this same basic game.

The same can be said for platformers, RPGs, etc.

Originally Posted by besson3c

Since you're the gamer, if you don't mind me asking you, what sort of games do you consider innovative and why?

Innovation is incremental at this point. It's not fair to expect big changes like 3D (N64 kind) and Analog to happen each generation. Think about the film industry. What was the last innovation there? Does that mean it's stale and boring and there's nothing worth watching any more? I suppose that depends on how much of a snob or cynic you are.

You're indicting the genre rather than the games themselves. it's simply intellectually lazy. You can't group BioShock, Modern Warfare, Borderlands, and Portal into the same group unless you're being superficial.

Video games, as a medium, have some serious handicaps. One of them is, in the vast majority of games you're going to kill stuff. Mario, Zelda, Gradius, Wolfenstein, Final Fantasy... you're killing stuff. The exceptions used to be sports games (Except you, my dear Mutant League Football), and in the past generation and half, music games.

Now, add the desire to immerse someone in a game and what camera view do you take?

So again, complaining about shooters being commonplace is an incredibly short-sighted complaint.

I'm not sure that Mario fits in your list, but your point is well taken. A great many games center around killing stuff.

I don't understand how you feel that I'm grouping these games together though. I recognize that Portal is a much different game than your standard 3D shooter. My problem was that I wasn't specific enough I guess, in saying that I find the standard 3D go-around-and-shoot-stuff thing pretty repetitive. I'm not saying that there aren't puzzle games or games that involve other sorts of strategies while baring similarities such as the same camera angle and stuff.

Then again, I may have misunderstood you altogether, and possibly likewise.

I haven't actually played the game yet. In the genre of a fantasy-like Zelda game, what other games capture what Zelda is going after in a more effective way, do you think? I don't have a strong frame of reference.

The ultimate irony is that Nintendo makes it's living providing just that. Are the Zeldas and Marios really all that dramatically different than those from the N64 days? I would vote no.

They definitely aren't, except for possibly the Will Motion Plus stuff being built into Skyward Sword.

Innovation is incremental at this point. It's not fair to expect big changes like 3D (N64 kind) and Analog to happen each generation. Think about the film industry. What was the last innovation there? Does that mean it's stale and boring and there's nothing worth watching any more? I suppose that depends on how much of a snob or cynic you are.

Okay, forget innovation then... What games have really excited you in the last while and have addicted you and made you want to play them over and over again even after finishing them?

I'm taking a different attitude here and trying to be more open and willing to learn rather than clutching to my ill-formed opinion, because this isn't the PWL

To all of you praising Fallout 3: Did you play Oblivion first? I played Oblivion a lot when it came out, loving it, and Fallout 3 just seemed like Oblivion but...less. The main quest is way shorter, there are fewer communities to visit, fewer side-quest lines... Did I miss something? Don't get me wrong, I liked Fallout 3 as well (especially with the Broken Steel expansion), but Oblivion was just so much...bigger.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

To all of you praising Fallout 3: Did you play Oblivion first? I played Oblivion a lot when it came out, loving it, and Fallout 3 just seemed like Oblivion but...less. The main quest is way shorter, there are fewer communities to visit, fewer side-quest lines... Did I miss something? Don't get me wrong, I liked Fallout 3 as well (especially with the Broken Steel expansion), but Oblivion was just so much...bigger.

Nope, never played Oblivion but i've been thinking about picking up the 5th Anniversary Edition that came out last week, $30 including the DLC seems like a good deal.

Fallout 3 is my favorite game this gen and I could only hope i like Oblivion half as much as F3.

Good graphics are good graphics regardless of resolution up to a certain point, but I don't think you necessarily need realism to offer graphically rich worlds. You can do so with impressionism and/or just great art direction.

To all of you praising Fallout 3: Did you play Oblivion first? I played Oblivion a lot when it came out, loving it, and Fallout 3 just seemed like Oblivion but...less. The main quest is way shorter, there are fewer communities to visit, fewer side-quest lines... Did I miss something? Don't get me wrong, I liked Fallout 3 as well (especially with the Broken Steel expansion), but Oblivion was just so much...bigger.

I'm not sure that Mario fits in your list, but your point is well taken. A great many games center around killing stuff.

How many Goombas and Koopas has Mario massacred by stomping on their heads? How many other creatures have felt the sting of the fireballs he shoots from his hands?

Originally Posted by besson3c

I don't understand how you feel that I'm grouping these games together though. I recognize that Portal is a much different game than your standard 3D shooter. My problem was that I wasn't specific enough I guess, in saying that I find the standard 3D go-around-and-shoot-stuff thing pretty repetitive.

Everything is repetitive. Platformers are just a lot of jumping instead of a lot of shooting.

Stop right there. You're only impression is an HD upres running on an emulator?

Try again. Watch it in all its jaggy 480p glory.

Originally Posted by besson3c

I haven't actually played the game yet. In the genre of a fantasy-like Zelda game, what other games capture what Zelda is going after in a more effective way, do you think? I don't have a strong frame of reference.

What is Zelda going after?

Originally Posted by besson3c

They definitely aren't, except for possibly the Will Motion Plus stuff being built into Skyward Sword.

They "innovated" the method if control, but not the actual gameplay. Depending who you ask, that method of input can be limiting as well.

If I make a Mario that runs on a touchpad, have I innovated?

Originally Posted by besson3c

Okay, forget innovation then... What games have really excited you in the last while and have addicted you and made you want to play them over and over again even after finishing them?

Games you play after you beat them are far and few in between. As for addiction, the past innovation of online gameplay (which has blossomed on consoles this gen) has been addicting in a variety of games.

This isn't the first time for one of Abraham's sites to get a public internet airing. Back in 2008, a report on website RipoffReport wrote that a Zune music download site registered by Anthony Abraham was "the epitome of a scam in every way". The contact address and email is the same as the contact info for ModernWarfare3.com.

As Major Nelson says, "there are no new features that will show up once your system has been updated," as the update is simply to set up some background technology for further improvements later this year.

Yo dog, I herd you like updates before your updates, so I updated your update so that it updates before you update.

Unlike the 360 and the Wii, downloaded PS3 content absolutely cannot be transferred to external media for easy transportation, and neither can your PSN ID. Whenever you want to get your stuff on a different physical console, you are required to connect to the Internet and redownload everything

Right now, this won't be a problem for most people, the keywords being "right" and "now." What happens years from now when the PlayStation Network -- and every other online service, for that matter -- either goes away for good or evolves into something completely different than what we have today?

Yet again, an active Internet connection is required to access the games you've already purchased. It's possible to transfer the licenses of your games from one console to the other, but that requires the console to be new (whatever that means), and can only be done every 121 days. So now you're actually being limited in terms of where you're allowed to bring your own games!

Normally this wouldn't be too terrible of a thing (presently, at least), but I think we all remember what the original model of the 360 was famous for.

To all of you praising Fallout 3: Did you play Oblivion first? I played Oblivion a lot when it came out, loving it, and Fallout 3 just seemed like Oblivion but...less. The main quest is way shorter, there are fewer communities to visit, fewer side-quest lines... Did I miss something? Don't get me wrong, I liked Fallout 3 as well (especially with the Broken Steel expansion), but Oblivion was just so much...bigger.

I probably put 60-70 hours into Oblivion on my Mac and I liked it well enough, but there are a few things that kept bothering me.

First, the voice acting is pretty dismal, apart from Captain Picard at the beginning. There are about 4 voices in total, so entering a village and hearing multiple characters talk to eachother is downright hilarious.

Second, the character animations are also a little bit rigid and unnatural. Fallout 3 still uses the same engine, but you can see where they've tweaked the NPC AI.

Third, the ranking up system is pretty stupid, and I really dislike the way the world spawns tougher and tougher monsters the higher ranked you get, so there is never a time where you can explore and feel safe. In Fallout 3 they had a system of making the tougher creatures more common at higher ranks, but all enemies are around from the get-go, making a more believable world.

Finally, I hate switching between magic and weapons, there isn't a single way to set it up that feels natural, and there aren't enough quick slots to equip every weapon and spell you may need, so during many battles I'd have to bring up the inventory menu and pause the game, breaking the flow.

I did like the massive amount of items and plants and such that you can collect and use to concoct your own potions, I like the large variety of enemies, and I liked the more colorful and unique world to explore. The parts where you enter Oblivion are definitely the high point of the game for me.

The leveling system in Oblivion did it for me. I did the first mission after leaving the sewers tried to level up, which I never did. Way too much going on with the inventory, almost overwhelming, and broke up the action way too much. That was all she wrote for me and I never picked it up again.

I probably put 60-70 hours into Oblivion on my Mac and I liked it well enough, but there are a few things that kept bothering me.

First, the voice acting is pretty dismal, apart from Captain Picard at the beginning. There are about 4 voices in total, so entering a village and hearing multiple characters talk to eachother is downright hilarious.

This is probably due to what parts of the game you focus on. All of the longer quest lines have pretty decent voice actors, IMO - the issue is with the random comments. What really annoyed me was the Daedra shrines - at each shrine, you had to find the one quest giver, and all the other people there all had 1 of about 5 lines.

Originally Posted by sek929

Second, the character animations are also a little bit rigid and unnatural. Fallout 3 still uses the same engine, but you can see where they've tweaked the NPC AI.

Fair enough. I tend to blame things like this on it being an X360 launch title.

Originally Posted by sek929

Third, the ranking up system is pretty stupid, and I really dislike the way the world spawns tougher and tougher monsters the higher ranked you get, so there is never a time where you can explore and feel safe. In Fallout 3 they had a system of making the tougher creatures more common at higher ranks, but all enemies are around from the get-go, making a more believable world.

I agree that what they ended up with was silly - partially because the top-level armors in Oblivion were so distinctive that you could see from far away when some random bandit came running in glass or Daedric armor - but the alternative is to do it like Dragon Age, where they basically blocked off two big areas of the free exploration area until you had leveled up a bit. Fallout 3 was less annoying, though, I'll give you that.

There is a hack to remove the auto-leveling of enemies, though I never tried it.

Originally Posted by sek929

Finally, I hate switching between magic and weapons, there isn't a single way to set it up that feels natural, and there aren't enough quick slots to equip every weapon and spell you may need, so during many battles I'd have to bring up the inventory menu and pause the game, breaking the flow.

I agree that the lack of quickslots was annoying (another effect of the consolification), but I had the same problem in Fallout 3. I effect, I rearranged the quickslots after seeing a few enemies so I knew what I was dealing with, and that was the same in both games.

Originally Posted by sek929

I did like the massive amount of items and plants and such that you can collect and use to concoct your own potions, I like the large variety of enemies, and I liked the more colorful and unique world to explore. The parts where you enter Oblivion are definitely the high point of the game for me.

What I love about it is the enormous world. I mentioned the Daedric shrines. These are 15 locations hidden out in the wilderness, each with a rather unique quest. The main quest points you to one of them, but they're basically hidden, with few indications that they even exist. These are completely optional quests that someone spent quite a lot of time on, and they're hard to even find without using a FAQ. You can also become a vampire, giving you various strengths and weaknesses that completely change the game. The game is full of things like this.

It is far from a perfect game. It is possible to break the game terribly by combining certain spells, and you have to wonder how the economy works with such treasures hidden in every cave (find one old sword and sell it, and you can live on the money for the rest of your life), but when it works, it's incredible.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

I agree on all points, it's a beautiful game with more nooks and crannies than you can shake a stick at. But, for me at least, not entirely enjoyable to actually play in the combat-area. Otherwise exploring the main cities, each with its own distinctive aesthetic , and wandering the landscape is more diverse and interesting than most of the areas in Fallout 3.

For the quickslots, I feel there is a lot less overlap in Oblivion compared to Fallout 3. The shear amount of spells and their effects, different weapons and arrow types, scrolls, etc simply made it impossible to have one setup and use it for a long while. Fallout 3, having only guns, means that maybe you can't have a revolver and a 9mm pistol in the slots at the same time, but they do pretty much the same thing so it doesn't end up being a problem.

The one city, called Cheydinhall or something, is so beautiful to look at I spent days, and nights, looking at it from all angles.

In fact, this little discussion might have sparked my interest to dive back into Cyrodill for a few more days.

Presumably as part of the coming together of Games for Windows and Xbox.com, you can now play four free "trial" games (ie demos) on the Xbox 360's homepage, right in your browser, no install necessary. The games are Plants vs Zombies, Bejeweled 3, Zuma's Revenge and Text Twist 2.

The panel discussed the relevance of narrative-based gameplay in today's world of casual and social games. Looking at recent AAA releases L.A. Noire and Heavy Rain--both heavily story-led--they debated whether their long length was still enticing for today's gamer. "Gamers are losing patience," said Kennedy, when asked about his own experiences with Heavy Rain, "so many people don't reach the end and lose the full impact of the story." He wasn't complimentary of its narrative either, questioning the benefit of basing a game on long-form narrative such as film, resulting in a "bastardised" storyline that doesn't quite work.

Just to write the stories, animate them, and do the voiceovers for the endless stream of worthless conversations had to diminish the time spent on the story. If they had made the game 25% shorter, and focused more on the other things (more epic shoot-outs, more variety in missions, etc.), I think it would've been a no-brainer for best game of the generation.

I think it was Dakar that pointed out the obvious: it was GTA on horses. That's both a good and a bad thing.

I found it be a much more immersive and interesting game than GTA for reasons I'm sure I've already outlined. I don't think it's the effort of creating the game that diminished the experience – it was the effort of trying to create filler. I imagine one of the sad side-effects of creating this large worlds is the developers feel like they're short-changing themselves (as well as the players) if the don't jam it with as much to do as possible.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that the correct angle is to fill out games in the periphery... make the story short, sweet and to the point, but allow the game to be twice as long if you want it to be in optional stories and side quests.

220 events with 730 individual races, I haven't finished them yet. It's something to do before FM4 comes out . I've got 2 achievements left to get in the game - Gold in every race, and the drift lap. I could have probably done the game by now if I hadn't got sidetracked with painting cars and online races, except for the drift lap, that one is a

If you're using the standard controls you just direct your car with the thumbstick and press a button to make it explode. But if you're playing with Kinect things get a bit silly looking.

You start by holding your hands in front of you, as if gripping an invisible steering wheel. Once you've driven your car, which has no brake or gas controls, into the thick of track and crash, you can stop pretending to grip that wheel. Now to play you need to move around on the floor to direct the direction your car will go when it explodes. To blow the car up you need to hop.

As you can see by the video, the results are apparently designed to make me look stupid. But that's OK! Because it's also sort of fun. While playing the game mode with standard controls was just as enjoyable, it wasn't quite as challenging. I think once this game lands at my house, I'll probably find myself playing with motion controls more often then with the standard controller.

If I'm reading that right, the game is kid's play, but thanks to wonders of the immersion of motion control, using the kinect makes it (more) difficult.

...aaaaaand I officially won't be buying this. As I said earlier in the old gaming thread, the Goldeneye on Wii is the best FPS you can play....for the Wii. Which ranks it near dead-last compared to anything we're used to.

Originally Posted by Kevin Bogues

What do you think sek? does it appeal enough to a fallout faithful to be a worthwhile pick up?

I'd get it for your Mac, since the controls would be a nightmare on a 360 controller IMO. Other than that, yes, its a very good game that was re-skinned to become Fallout 3, so I'd think you'd like it alot. Just be warned, progress is much harder to come by and there are so many things to do in the world it can be incredibly overwhelming at first.

I'd get it for your Mac, since the controls would be a nightmare on a 360 controller IMO. Other than that, yes, its a very good game that was re-skinned to become Fallout 3, so I'd think you'd like it alot. Just be warned, progress is much harder to come by and there are so many things to do in the world it can be incredibly overwhelming at first.

Honestly i try to stay away from gaming on my mac, minecraft only worked because it ran great on my MBA, if anything it will have to be a 360 purchase, with a pretty big lull until we hit some serious game releases after summer i need a game that can put some hours in.

The 5th Anniversary edition is only $30, and i've been trolling eBay for a cheap pick up of the GOTY edition, If i can find one for ~$20 it seems like a no brainier.

Fallout 4 cannot come soon enough... i'm hoping the facial software/hardware? used in LA noire can have a part in that game (speaking of... over to the LA Noire thread)

...aaaaaand I officially won't be buying this. As I said earlier in the old gaming thread, the Goldeneye on Wii is the best FPS you can play....for the Wii. Which ranks it near dead-last compared to anything we're used to.

Oh please, why were you even considering it? Falling for the marketing using the GoldenEye name? Unless you've bought Activision's previous Bond games I don't see why you'd care.